The Hawks’ biggest question is the same one hanging over several teams in this ESPN roundup: was last season real, or just a blip?
Atlanta surged after January, then ran into the eventual champion Knicks and got bounced in the first round. Even so, the Hawks gave New York two of its three playoff losses, and they finished the regular season on a 19-4 run with a plus-13.9 average point differential after committing to CJ McCollum in the starting lineup. ESPN’s Tim MacMahon pointed out that the Hawks’ 51-point loss in their elimination game was not the kind of finish being referenced, but the late stretch still mattered.
Now the roster has changed again. The Hawks added Lu Dort, a former NBA champion with the Thunder, along with Aaron Wiggins in trades, and drafted Kingston Flemings in the lottery.
McCollum will likely move to the bench because of Dort’s arrival. Atlanta also looks set up to be active either at the trade deadline or next summer, when the team could have about $45 million in salary cap space.
Charlotte is in a different spot, but the same basic debate applies: how much of last season can actually carry over?
The Hornets dealt LaMelo Ball to the Timberwolves and Miles Bridges to the Suns, so the group will look and feel different right away. ESPN’s Brian Windhorst said Charlotte has been careful about how it has built, and that ownership and the front office have tried to avoid the usual mistakes teams make when they chase the middle. The Hornets reached that middle last season, but the organization clearly decided Ball and Bridges, both on expensive deals and due for extensions soon, were not part of the next step.
Charlotte did bring in veterans Naz Reid, Grayson Allen and Dennis Schroder to support newly established cornerstones Brandon Miller and Kon Knueppel. Even so, Windhorst noted that Miller still needs an extension that works for both sides, and Knueppel’s moderate hamstring injury will keep him out of all of training camp and the start of the season. In a crowded Eastern Conference, simply getting back to the play-in may not be simple.
Boston’s situation is stranger still. The Celtics just posted a terrific regular season while Jayson Tatum was sidelined for most of it after Achilles surgery, and Jaylen Brown pushed himself into the NBA MVP conversation while carrying the load. Then Boston traded Brown to the Sixers, leaving the spotlight squarely on Tatum.
Vincent Goodwill wrote that Tatum made a point of getting back on the floor before last season ended, showing that the Achilles injury would not keep him off the court. The short-term results, though, were uneven. His regular-season percentages dipped across the board, and he missed Game 7 of the Celtics’ first-round series because of left knee discomfort.
That sets up the central Boston question now: can Tatum do what Brown just did?
Goodwill said trading Brown was a full endorsement of Tatum’s ability to take the throttle while the team retools to get back to championship status. The remaining issue is the one that matters most: “But is Tatum fully recovered from the injury and ready to assume control?”
In Other News...
Celtics Suddenly Have A Low-Risk Shot At Former Top-10 Talent
Rob Dillinghams rapid slide has turned him into an intriguing free-agent possibility, and the Celtics are among the teams looking hard enough to notice. The former eighth overall pick in the 2024 NBA Draft has already been waived by the Hornets after earlier stops with the Timberwolves and Bulls, a reminder of how quickly a promising young guard can get lost in the churn of roster moves.
Bostons interest makes sense as a low-risk swing on talent rather than a short-term fix. A two-way contract would give the Celtics a chance to bring in a former top-10 pick who is still available as an unrestricted free agent, with very little downside if the fit never develops and a meaningful upside if his game starts to stabilize. [Read more 🡒]
Brad Stevens Just Reopened A Painful Celtics Debate
Brad Stevens didnt exactly reopen an old wound by accident. In discussing the Celtics offensive issues in recent years, he put a spotlight back on a familiar concern around Boston: when the game slows down and the pressure rises, the offense has too often leaned too heavily on a limited set of solutions. Stevens said the team needs more versatile ways to score, and his comments inevitably echo back to some of the Celtics groups that included Jaylen Brown and still hit rough patches when possessions bogged down.
Joe Mazzulla has already acknowledged the need to shape the system around the current roster, and thats where the real tension sits now. Boston knows the talent is there, but talent alone does not settle the question of identity, especially when training camp is the place where habits are supposed to harden and roles are supposed to become clear. The Celtics are still searching for the version of their offense that can hold up when opponents take away the first option, and the conversation around how they get there is very much alive. [Read more 🡒]
Celtics Still Carry One Surprising 2026-27 Ceiling After Major Change
Bostons future outlook has a way of staying surprisingly upbeat even after a major roster shakeup. Stephen Noh of The Sporting News has the Celtics pegged for 54 wins and the top seed in the Eastern Conference for the 2026-27 season, a projection that comes with the obvious caveat of moving forward without Jaylen Brown and asking Jayson Tatum to return to All-NBA form after injury.
Paul George and Mitchell Robinson are also part of that optimistic equation, and their contributions would matter almost as much as Tatums health. It is a reminder that the Celtics ceiling still looks formidable on paper, but the whole forecast depends on key players being available and productive when it counts. [Read more 🡒]